Peter Robinson - Not Dark Yet

The weather was changing and it was a windy evening when Banks drove over to Lyndgarth listening to Rhiannon Giddens on the car stereo. He pulled up outside Windlee Farm halfway through ‘Little Margaret.’ All seemed quiet there, except for the wind whistling around the buildings — no sixties rock blaring out of the open windows — but Ray’s car was in the drive, and it was unlikely he had gone anywhere without it. Banks walked up to the front door and rang the bell. Nothing. He knocked hard. Still nothing. Next, he walked around the property to see if Ray was in one of the outbuildings, Zelda’s studio, or even sitting on the edge of the moor contemplating sketching, as he often did. But he wasn’t there, either.

He went back and tried the front door. It creaked open. Ray never was much of a one for security, he remembered, and without Zelda’s recent paranoia to drive him, he had reverted to old habits. However, Banks was certain that even Ray would have locked up if he had gone out. There was no smell of food cooking, which was also odd. Banks decided that Ray was either in a deep, alcohol-induced sleep or he was so lost in his work he wasn’t paying attention to anything else. He put the wine bottle down and prowled around the downstairs rooms, kitchen, den, living room. Where was Ray? Banks suddenly felt a chill of fear run up his spine. Had they come back? Whoever was left of the gang that had taken Zelda. Had they come back to take revenge on Ray for her escape? But there were no signs of any disruption. At least, not downstairs.

Banks called out Ray’s name but got only silence in return. There were no lights on and the downstairs was in shadow. Banks opened the cellar door, flicked on the light switch and went down. Nothing there. Next, he headed for the staircase. As soon as he got to the bottom, he froze. He could see a shape there, a bulk, right at the top, and there was a hand hanging over the first step.

He took the stairs two at a time and knelt by Ray’s motionless body, laid two fingers on the carotid artery in his neck. No pulse. The skin was cold, and when he turned on the light he could see discoloration already beginning to affect the flesh. Banks fell back against the wall and slid down, knees together, and held his head in his hands. It couldn’t be. Ray dead? Just like that.

But there was no mistake. Banks glanced over the body but could see no signs of physical violence. That didn’t mean anything, of course; even a fatal knife wound might not be visible to the naked eye. The only thing to do was not to disturb the scene further and to call in the police. They would need a doctor and a mortuary van, but there was no sense in asking for an ambulance. Ray was beyond ambulances.

Following his copper’s instinct, Banks checked out all the other rooms upstairs. Nobody. Ray’s studio door was open and soft gold evening light flooded through the large skylight and back windows, illuminating the canvas that stood on its easel. It was Zelda, Banks could see. When he walked closer he saw all sorts of details and realised that it was a sort of optical illusion — one large image incorporating many smaller ones, also of Zelda, or so it appeared. It seemed somehow unfinished, and it would always remain that way now. On his way out he noticed Forever Changes on another easel and the cover of The Nice’s The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack leaning against the turntable.

With a heavy heart, Banks stepped carefully over Ray’s body, made his way back downstairs on shaky legs, then went outside for some fresh air and punched in the familiar numbers on his mobile.

Neither Banks nor Annie had any interest in attending Dr. Galway’s post-mortem examination. Annie had gone down to the mortuary with Banks to identify the body, and then she had gone home, said she wanted to be by herself for a while. Gerry, too, was devastated. She and Ray had started out on the wrong track, Banks knew, because Ray had teased her mercilessly about her being a nubile pre-Raphaelite beauty and said how he wanted her to pose for him in the nude. But after she had almost died taking down a murder suspect, he had presented her with a beautiful head and shoulders sketch of her that he had drawn from memory. She had it framed and hung it in the pride of place on the wall of her small flat. Since then, they had been the best of friends, and she had given as good as she got in the teasing department.

When it was all over, Banks was the one who walked down that tiled corridor to the doctor’s office alone and found himself again sitting under ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ while he listened to Dr. Galway’s interpretations of the post-mortem results.

‘I can state categorically,’ she said, ‘that there are absolutely no signs of foul play. Your friend died a sad but most natural death.’

‘Heart?’ Banks said. He had already heard from the CSIs that there was no evidence of a break-in or of any struggle at Windlee Farm, and his own brief examination had told him there was nothing missing, so robbery was not likely to be the motive. The people responsible for Zelda’s abduction and his own near demise were all dead — Phil Keane, Petar, and Goran Tadić. Leka Gashi, the Albanian whom Annie had discovered was responsible for the Connor Clive Blaydon and Neville Roberts murders was still on the loose somewhere, but he had no connection with Ray or Zelda.

‘Myocardial infarction. A massive heart attack. It would have been quick. He would hardly have known what hit him. A few moments of pain, perhaps, then...’

‘ “The anaesthetic from which none come round.” ’

She frowned. ‘Quite. Well, I suppose you could put it like that, if you happened to be of a poetic turn of mind. What I’m trying to say is that he wouldn’t have suffered greatly.’

‘Thank you. But would he have known what was happening? It looked as if he was trying to get downstairs to his phone.’

‘He would certainly have known something was happening. But not for long.’ She paused. ‘His arteries were in a bad way. The blood supply to the heart was cut off. The damage was so extensive that he must have had at least some chest pain and shortness of breath over the past few months to warn him that something was seriously wrong.’

Banks knew that Ray would simply ignore something like that, not think it worth mentioning. ‘I do remember once or twice he complained of chest pains,’ he said. ‘Not that I don’t have plenty of aches and pains myself.’

‘It’s probably just your age. We often don’t recognise symptoms.’

‘And when we do, it often turns out that they’re not symptoms at all but simply a result of sitting in the wrong position for too long. Or indigestion, heartburn.’

‘There is that. But if you’re worried about anything, maybe you should see your doctor and have a full physical?’

‘Maybe. It’s been a while. But I’m not worried. So a heart attack, then?’

‘Yes.’

A heart attack. Pure and simple. Banks was glad it was a natural death. If Ray had been murdered, it would create a whole new set of problems, some for which he might even bear a modicum of blame. ‘And the cause?’

‘Hard to say exactly.’

‘I know he didn’t get much exercise.’

‘That was quite obvious. He also drank and smoked too much and ate far too much fatty food,’ Dr. Galway added, with a pointed look in Banks’s direction.

‘I don’t smoke,’ Banks said, and she just smiled.

‘I’m sorry about your friend, Superintendent Banks,’ said Dr. Galway. ‘Sincerely sorry. But he was in his late seventies and he didn’t take very good care of himself. Annie Cabbot’s his daughter, isn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘How is she doing?’

‘About as well as you’d expect, which is not very well.’